Lady Wildcats survive Heritage rally

An 18-point effort from Zalandria Hill helped give the Apalachee High School Lady Wildcats a region win against visiting Heritage Tuesday night.

AHS (6-7, 3-5) led by 10 points after the third quarter but saw the Lady Patriots tie the game at 38 with 2:36 left. Heritage would be able to take a late lead, however, as Tamaica Morrow made two free throws to give the Lady Wildcats the lead back with 1:38 remaining.

Hill then made 1-of-2 free throws to push the lead to 41-38 with 1:04 left. Neither team would score any additional points.

Heritage went to a pressing defense in the fourth quarter which caused AHS trouble in getting the basketball up the court.

“We’re still not very good at breaking the press,” Lady Wildcat coach Gary Compton said. “It’s one of those things where if we do it right, then it’s beautiful, but we have some young players. Heritage mixed up their presses on us and we panicked. We also didn’t take good shot selections.

The win moved AHS a game below the .500 mark overall and was its third in Region 8-AAAAA.

Morrow finished with seven points while Ryan Burke scored five.

“Defensively, we played a great first half,” Compton said. “This was a huge win. Heritage is a good team. They beat Salem and gave Flowery Branch problems the other night. This win will help us with our confidence.”

The AHS coach said Hill had a strong outing.

“We’ve known since this summer she can be a scorer,” Compton said. “She is really coming on strong.”